in my daughter's eyes
by elleigator
Summary: Because Angel Godard is nothing if not adaptable. Lyrics from Martina McBride's 'In My Daughter's Eyes'.


_In my daughter's eyes I am a hero._

_I am strong and wise and I know no fear._

_But the truth is plain to see_

_She was sent to rescue me._

_I see who I want to be in my daughter's eyes._

She hasn't always been like this. This strong, resilient, independent woman. If you had seen her aged sixteen, under the Forth and Clyde canal bridge, drinking bottle after bottle of stolen cider from the corner shop, you would never have thought she would become the woman she is today. It's almost like she is two separate people- she changes, adapts to who and where she is, an ever-flickering collection of the girls she has been collated into the woman she is today. She was the girl who helped to hang her Mother's laundry from the washing line strung between theirs and the flat opposite, running on the street underneath to dodge the droplets of sodden school uniforms that dripped down. She was the girl who clutched her siblings' hands in her own on the way to school, pushing the key back through the letterbox and running her fingers through their hair in a poor attempt to make them a little more presentable. She was the girl who ran wild, tough and free and kind and rough and owned the streets she lived on. She had a streak to her that nobody else had, making her just a little intimidating, a flair that made her untouchable- so she thought. Her identity was formed around this idea of her independence, of needing nobody, being fearless.

This was never true, though. She so desperately wanted someone to know her raw self, her honest, messy truth. For someone to love her unconditionally for herself- not one of the versions she has created for other people. Her parents had tried to tell her who she was- clever, pretty, perfect in school, a good second mother to her siblings. She was very much like her own mother, after all. Opinionated, sometimes harsh, brutally honest, to the point where the two clashed over everything. Her father wasn't home enough for the two of them to argue over anything.

She guesses that this was when it started- in an attempt to rebel from her parents' construction of their perfect daughter, a feeble sort of protest. A job in the café across the street for a few months, a phone call to her cousin, a ticket to a final concert for a band she didn't even like. She left a note on the table, instructions for her oldest younger brother to run down the road for chips if they got hungry before Mum came home. And she left, just like that, for England.

She remembers getting on the bus from the train station in England that would take her to Wembley, sitting across from the boy with the big hair and kind eyes. She smiled at him, just as she had smiled at everyone on the train, and recieved a surprised eyebrow in reply. He looked older than her, definitely- she was only thirteen, tall and strong but thirteen nonetheless. She knew she was dressed older than she was, so when she told him she had turned sixteen last week he didn't bat an eyelid, and offered her a place to stay that night. She had accepted excitedly, feeling reckless, feeling in the mood for some self-destruction, whatever that entailed.

It wasn't what she thought. She had heard whispers of 'sex' around the school, of course, but never actually knew what went on and she wished she hadn't found out like this. She had been enthusiastic, of course, but it wasn't something she looked back on with pride. But, she thought a few years later, at least she had this memory of her first time. At least the second time wasn't the first. She didn't ask for it- didn't ask to be maimed, to be changed so forcefully, the child inside her ripped out and left to bleed on her bedroom floor. She grew up so fast after that. The woman she was after was not the woman she wanted to be- cold and emotionless, flinching at every touch, unnerved by anything. This isn't what she asked for, not what she wanted for herself at all, yet here she is.

She was reckless, she decided, stupid and naive and _it was her own fault. _She wasn't unbreakable, resilient, strong at all- she was sixteen and scared and hurt and it was eating her alive. She couldn't bounce back, sew herself back up, because this was just too much. She had thought that giving Dominic up would be the most traumatic thing she would ever have to go through, but how wrong she was. She didn't know what to think- to be angry, or upset, or just violated.

The only thing she knew for sure was that no one wanted to talk about it. Nobody wanted for her to talk, because it made her mother cry, and her father close his eyes in shame, and her grandmother to shake her head in sadness. Nobody wanted to hear about how she remembered twisting and wriggling, shrieking and screaming, and nobody wanted to hear about _how much it hurt. _How much it physically ached, cramped, made her feel as if she was giving birth all over again yet this was so much more painful. Nobody wanted to talk about it.

So she lied. She put on her 'Ange face', told people that yes it hurt but she's okay now, she's fine now, she's recovering, because she is nothing if she is not adaptable to make others more comfortable. No, the nightmares don't wake her up (because she never sleeps). She remembers just being exhausted all the time, yet unable to fall asleep for fear of what would come. When it was dark, her head got so much louder, the pains came back, his hands came back, and she couldn't be dealing with that.

So she was back under the canal by 3am, a pack of ten cigarettes and more sad girls like her crouched in the shadows. She could see her flat from where they would sit. She would see the light to the bedroom she shared with her sisters flicker on, her mother's silhouette creep in, and stand at the window, look down at her and the sad girls. Her mother would raise a hand in a feeble attempt at a wave, an invitation to come back into the safeness of the flat. But she always denied, because she was nothing if not adaptable, and right now she felt cold and empty and dead inside. So she changed her surroundings- although the Glaswegian air was not much colder than the tangly arms of her sisters that would end up draped over her night after night, no matter how much she tried to force them onto their side of the bed. She would panic when a chubby hand came to rest on her stomach, when small fingers pawed at her hair. She knew it was wrong, really- they were only little, only wanting for some longed-for affection, but she froze them out, tangles of curses escaping from her mouth as she upset the bed, tipping one or both of them out, pulling on her coat and wandering down to the canal.

She didn't realise she was pregnant until a few weeks before she gave birth. She promises herself that she would have given up the smoking and drinking earlier if she had known, of course she would have. She is many things, but she would not be a bad mother. Even with Dominic, she had been so careful, handled him so precariously, but she had been stupid with this. She supposed that it had been a thought that lingered for a few days after _it _had happened, but had been quickly replaced by more prevalent worries.

But now, glassy eyes blink slowly up at her, tiny little blue flutters that make her heart beat a bit faster. She is small, too small- she can fit in the palm of her mother's hand, unhealthily blue and cold, but her eyes are so beautiful. Angel presses her a little bit closer to her chest, making her tiny lips let out a little mewl, and her minuscule fingers stretch out to pat her chest.

At this moment, Angel looks up at the speckled ceiling of the hospital ward and thanks God. Not for delivering her daughter safely, not for what He has put her through, but for this message of faith. This sign that He trusts her enough with such a tiny, precious thing as this baby lying in her arms, pressed against her bare skin. Her daughter was sent to rescue her, and she sees this. Her spidery little eyelashes flicker open again, and Angel sees her reflection in the glazed pools of marine blue, but she sees someone different too. She sees a kind woman, a gentle, caring, brave mother, who would do anything and everything for her daughter.

_In my daughter's eyes everyone is equal_

_Darkness turns to light and the world is at peace_

_It's miracle God gave to me_

_Gives me strength when I am weak_

_I find reason to believe in my daughter's eyes._

She is in her fourth year of medical school, her fourth year of her future. Not just her own future, though- her daughter's future too. Her daughter is staying the weekend with her, currently lying asleep on the bed, dressed in one of her mother's shirts which is a more-than-big-enough nightie. The wall above her bed is plastered with this blonde curly big-eyed child, a constant reminder of why she is here.

She is Ange now, a shortening, a fresh start, she thinks. Angel is for herself now. Angel is for those who really know her, who she really trusts. Her mother insists on calling her Angel, and her father does not call her anything at all. She hasn't seen her siblings in months, a brief wave as her mother drops off Chloe, confusion etched in their faces. They don't know, she realises. They must think that their biggest sister has upped and left them all. _It's not my fault, _she wants to tell them, _I just can't be there anymore. You can know when you're older, Mum'll tell you._

When her daughter painstakingly prints 'Angel' on the front of her letters to her mother, the admin staff who handle the post are confused. Who could have such a soft name, such a pretty name, such a gentle, kind, sensitive name? A soft, pretty, gentle, kind, sensitive girl, Angel wants to spit at them. For that is how her daughter sees her- strong and wise and fearless, and she will be that person if only for Chloe, because she is nothing if not adaptable.

She changes for everyone, but the only time it is willing is when it is for Chloe. She would become anyone for her daughter, anyone or anything, whoever she needed. She would not repeat the mistakes of her parents- Chloe came first. Whoever Chloe grew up to be, whatever she wanted to do, Angel would support unconditionally.

Most days she doesn't recognise herself, the woman staring back in the mirror. The blazers, the eyeliner, this character, this charade. Inside her, the little girl remains, cowers in the corners, unseen except for the occasional flash she catches in her daughter's eyes. She does not seem to be anything like she used to be, Angel realises all of a sudden. Chloe snuffles and turns on the bed behind her, drawing her back to reality, away from her thoughts. Angel glances over her shoulder, resting her gaze on her daughter, stretched out over the pillows. Did she, once upon a time, used to be looked at so lovingly by her own mother? No, Angel decides, her own mother didn't have the time for things like this. She wasn't the sort of mother Angel had always needed. She would be whoever her daughter needs, Angel promises, because she is nothing if not adaptable. She makes her way over to the bed slowly, careful not to wake the sleeping girl, and pulls back the covers gently, slipping in.

Chloe palms at her mother softly, fingers clinging to her mother's long hair, pulling her a little closer. Her eyes flutter open and Ange snatches a glance of her reflection, a snapshot of a little girl lost in a web of pain and hurt, bundled up in spider silk and stowed at the back of her head, where only she knows to look.

"Mumma," She whimpers, nothing but a soft kitten whine. Ange collects her hair into one hand, stroking gently, making her daughter's pink lips purse and her eyes to flicker back shut.

_And when she wraps her hand around my finger_

_Oh, it puts a smile in my heart._

_Everything becomes a little clearer_

_I realise what life is all about._

_It's hanging' on when your heart has had enough_

_It's giving more when you feel like giving up_

_I've seen the light_

_It's in my daughter's eyes._

An adult herself, now, Chloe only knows Ange as the woman her Mother paints on every day. As soon as she comes home, she is Angel again, her soft kind gentle Mum. Ange is nothing but a character, an identity created to hide from her past, to preserve her true self for the eyes of those she truly loves, who she knows won't hurt her. Because Angel is nobody but a little girl- a sad, kind, broken, soft, hurt girl who wants nothing more than to love and to be loved. Nothing if not adaptable.

In her daughter's eyes, Angel can see the future. A reflection of who she is and who she will be, from the untouchable girl in the tenements of Glasgow to the woman she is today- shards of the girls she has been, glued to make a woman with a passing resemblance to herself. Never quite good enough, never quite perfect, but she tries anyway. A liar, who spills stories from her heart, stories to convince herself as much as the people around her. A fractured collection of personalities, disguised as nothing but a complicated disposition. It's rare that anyone can get close enough to see her how she sees herself- not a fraud, exactly, but pretty close. Not what it says on the tin. But Angel has always been a shapeshifter, changeable, nothing if not adaptable.


End file.
